Telecom Plus delivers 'record year of growth'

Multi-utility supplier Telecom Plus said on Thursday that it had delivered a "record year of growth", with almost 160,000 further households signing up with the business.

Telecom Plus, which trades as Utility Warehouse, still expects full-year profits to be in line with expectations, partly due to ongoing "strong interest" in its income opportunity as cost of living pressures continue.

The FTSE 250-listed group said full-year adjusted pre-tax profits were pegged to be slightly above £95.0m and also confirmed its intention to pay a total dividend for the year of 80.0p, up from 57.0p per share a year earlier.

Telecom Plus added that falling wholesale prices were expected to feed through into lower energy bills later in the year, albeit remaining at "elevated levels". At the same time, it acknowledged that there was "considerable upward pressure on household budgets", with continued price inflation across the broadband, mobile, and insurance markets.

Co-chief executives Andrew Lindsay and Stuart Burnett said: "The business has delivered an exceptional performance over the last 12 months, with record results on virtually all metrics.

"As the UK's only multi-service utility provider, UW remains uniquely positioned to help families not only save on their household bills but also to earn a much-needed additional income. This gives us confidence in our ability to deliver another year of double-digit organic customer growth and to make further progress towards our target of welcoming an additional one million customers in the next four-five years."

As of 0835 BST, Telecom Plus shares were down 0.10% at 1,983.03p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com